Raymond Walter "Ray" Kelly (born September 4, 1941) was the longest serving Commissioner of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in its history and the first person to hold the post for two non-consecutive tenures. A lifelong New Yorker, Kelly had spent 47 years in the NYPD according to its website, serving in 25 different commands and as Police Commissioner from 1992 to 1994 and 2002 to 2013. Kelly was the first person to rise from Police Cadet to Police Commissioner, holding all of the department's ranks, except for Three-Star Bureau Chief, Chief of Department, and Deputy Commissioner, having been promoted directly from Two-Star Chief to First Deputy Commissioner in 1990.[2] After his handling of the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, he was mentioned for the first time as a possible candidate for FBI Director.[3] After Kelly turned down the position, Louis Freeh was appointed.[3]

Personal[edit]

Kelly with his wife Veronica in May 2011.

Kelly was born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, to James F. Kelly, a milkman,[12][13] and Elizabeth Kelly, a dressing-room checker at Macy's.[12] A fitness buff since his teens, Kelly still regularly lifts weights and does aerobic exercises.[14] He is also a snazzy dresser, favoring custom-made shirts which he has laundered at Geneva, a shirtmaker,[15] and silk ties by Charvet. "A tie is the only true way men can make some sort of statement", Kelly has stated, citing Barack Obama as another fan of the high-end French label. "I can tell when someone's wearing Charvet from a distance – even dark colors stand out."[16] Claiming that good quality clothing enhances his public image as an authority figure, he orders custom hand-tailored suits from master tailor Martin Greenfield, who numbers politicians and movie stars among his clientele and whose suits run in the four figures.[17]

Police career[edit]

Kelly in 2007

Kelly joined the New York City Police Department as a trainee in 1960. He graduated first in his class from the New York City Police Academy and passed the sergeant's test upon returning from Vietnam. This meteoric ascent combined with relative inexperience as a beat cop has prompted some criticisms from colleagues. According to Geoffrey Gray, writing in New York Magazine, "Some retired cops say Kelly’s swift ascent makes him a boss who doesn’t understand the street. 'He’s not a cop,' says one retired chief, dismissively. 'He’s on patrol for a blink of an eye and tells guys on patrol ten years how to do their jobs.' Says another, 'He gives you all the ingredients to make shrimp scampi and says he wants sirloin steak.'"[20]

However, his long service stands in stark contrast to that of his predecessor, Bernard Kerik. Kerik served as an NYPD officer for only 8 years, before becoming commissioner.

Kelly was promoted from a Two-Star Assistant Chief to the First Deputy position over several Three-Star Bureau Chiefs, and the Four-Star Chief of Department, Robert J. Johnston Jr.

At the time Johnston was so powerful, Brown altered the traditional hierarchy by announcing that Johnston would report directly to the Police Commissioner rather than the First Deputy as had been called for under the former departmental structure. This was done to prevent Johnston from having to report to his former subordinate, Kelly.[21]

37th NYC Police Commissioner[edit]

On October 16, 1992, Mayor Dinkins, appointed Kelly 37th Police Commissioner of the City of New York. Kelly took over a police department that was 11.5% black, in a city with an over 25% black population. At 9 am on his first full day as Police Commissioner, Kelly was on the “black-owned” radio station WLIB for 40 minutes talking to host Art Whaley, as well as callers, to discuss minority recruitment.[22] He showed himself a master of outreach and even attended black church services in an effort to recruit minority policemen.

The national decline in both violent crime and property crime began in 1993, during the early months of Raymond Kelly's commissionership under Dinkins. At the time a firm believer in community policing, Kelly helped spur the decline in New York by instituting the Safe Streets, Safe City program, which put thousands more cops on the streets, where they would be visible to and able to get to know and interact with local communities. As the 37th Commissioner, he also pursued quality of life issues, such as the “squeegee men” that had become a sign of decay in the city. The murder rate in New York city had declined from its 1990 mid-Dinkins administration historic high of 2,254 to 1,927, when Kelly left in 1994,[23] and continued to plummet even more steeply under Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg. The decline continued when Kelly returned as commissioner under Mayor Bloomberg in 2002–2013.

1993 World Trade Center terrorist attack[edit]

The first World Trade Center terrorist attack occurred on February 26, 1993 while Kelly was Police Commissioner under Mayor Dinkins (1992 to 1994), and Kelly led his department through the investigation of the bombing.

1993 NYPD handgun transition[edit]

In August 1993, Kelly introduced the 9mm semi-automatic pistol as an option for officers. The Glock 19, SIG-Sauer P226, and Smith & Wesson 5946 pistols were approved for duty to replace the NYPD's Smith & Wesson Model 10 and Model 64 double-action only revolvers chambered in .38 Special. Himself a former street cop,[citation needed] Kelly was concerned about the semi-automatic pistols' propensity for sustaining firearm malfunctions. Indeed, at a media event introducing the new semi-automatic pistols in January 1993, one of the firearms malfunctioned just moments after a deputy inspector explained that malfunctions and failures were the semi-automatic pistol's major design drawback.[24]

Transition[edit]

41st NYC Police Commissioner[edit]

As Commissioner of the NYPD under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Kelly had often appeared at outreach events such as the Brooklyn's annual West Indian Day Parade, where he was photographed playing the drums and speaking to community leaders. Bloomberg and Kelly, however, continued to place heavy reliance on the CompStat system, initiated by Bill Bratton and since adopted by police departments in other cities world wide. The system, while recognized as highly effective in reducing crime, also puts pressure on local precincts to reduce the number of reports for the seven major crimes while increasing the number of lesser arrests.[25] The two men continued and indeed stepped up Mayor Giuliani's controversial stop-and-frisk policy, which is considered by some to be a form of racial profiling. In the first half of 2011 the NYC police made 362,150 such arrests, constituting a 13.5 percent increase from the same period in 2010, according to WNYC radio (which also reported that 84 percent of the people stopped were either black or Latino, and that "nine out 10 stops did not result in any arrest or ticket.") According to New York State Senator Eric Adams, “Kelly was one of the great humanitarians in policing under David Dinkins. I don’t know what happened to him that all of a sudden his philosophical understanding of the importance of community and police liking each other has changed. Sometimes the expeditious need of bringing down crime numbers bring out the worst in us. So instead of saying let’s just go seek out the bad guy, we get to the point of, ‘Let’s go get them all.’ If Kelly can’t philosophically change, then we need to have a leadership change at the top.”[26]

Under Bloomberg, Commissioner Kelly also revamped New York City's Police Department into a world-class counter-terrorism operation, operating in conjunction with the CIA. Prior to September 11th, 2001 there were fewer than two dozen officers working on terrorism full time; ten years later there were over 1,000. One of Kelly's innovations was his unprecedented stationing of New York City police detectives in other cities throughout the world following terrorist attacks in those cities, with a view to determining if they are in any way connected to the security of New York. In the cases of both the March 11, 2004, Madrid bombing and the London bombings on July 7 and 21, 2005, NYPD detectives were on the scene within a day to relay pertinent information back to New York. An August 2011 article by the Associated Press reported the NYCPD's extensive use of undercover agents (colloquially referred to as “rakers”[27] and “mosque crawlers”[28]) to keep tabs, even build databases, on stores, restaurants, mosques. and clubs. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne denied that police trawled ethnic neighborhoods, telling the AP that officers only follow leads. He also dismissed the idea of “mosque crawlers,” saying, "Someone has a great imagination."[29]

According to Mother Jones columnist Adam Serwer, "The FBI was reportedly so concerned about the legality of the NYPD's program that it refused to accept information that came out of it."[30] Valerie Caproni, the FBI's general counsel, told the AP that the FBI is barred from sending agents into mosques looking for leads outside of a specific investigation and said the practice would raise alarms. "If you're sending an informant into a mosque when there is no evidence of wrongdoing, that's a very high-risk thing to do," she was quoted as saying. "You're running right up against core constitutional rights. You're talking about freedom of religion."[29]

Under Mayor Bloomberg, Kelly's NYPD also incurred criticism for its handling of the protests surrounding the 2004 Republican National Convention, which resulted in the City of New York having to pay out millions in settlement of lawsuits for false arrest and civil rights violations, as well as for its rough treatment of credentialed reporters covering the 2011 Occupy Wall Street demonstrations.[31]

On March 5, 2007, it was announced that a Rikers Island inmate offered to pay an undercover police officer posing as a hit man to behead Kelly as well as bomb police headquarters in retaliation for the controversial police shooting of Sean Bell.[32]

In 2013 his visit to Brown University was met with a demonstration against what protestors saw as increased racial profiling and violations of civil rights under Kelly's leadership as NYPD Commissioner.[33]

Kelly a former Marine lieutenant was appointed as the Grand Marshal of the 95th annual Veterans Day parade in New York City in 2014. He will me marching with his wife who was a member of the Coast Guard reserve.

In November of 2014 is was reported that Mr. Kelly would no longer require a $1.5 Million Security Team. With his transformation from top cop to just some guy who works in real estate nearly complete. Kelly is looking forward to taking care of himself. Since leaving office, Kelly has had 24-hour-a-day protection from a security detail that consists of a NYPD lieutenant, three sergeants, and six detectives. With their $140,000 salaries (plus overtime), the ten-man team cost New York City taxpayers $1.5 million — a necessary expense, the NYPD argued, thanks to the threats Kelly and his family received as a result of his work. Kelly determined he was no longer the target he once was and will be relieving his publicly funded security detail on New Year's Day so that the resources can be deployed elsewhere.[40]

During a July 16, 2013 interview, President Obama referred generally to the "bunch of strong candidates" for nomination to head the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), but singled out Kelly as "one of the best there is" and "very well qualified for the job".[41] The next day, Kelly said he was "flattered" by Obama's praise but otherwise refused to confirm or deny whether he was interested in the Secretary position.[42] Describing "a growing campaign to quash the potential nomination of New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly as the next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security", the Huffington Post cited a July 18 letter to Obama from a coalition of Muslim groups; the letter stated in part, "Commissioner Kelly’s legacy in New York is synonymous with divisive, harmful, and ineffective policing that promotes stereotypes and profiling".[43] On July 22, Kelly penned a Wall Street Journalopinion article defending the NYPD's programs, stating "the average number of stops we conduct is less than one per officer per week" and that this and other practices have led to "7,383 lives saved—and...they are largely the lives of young men of color." [44]

Affiliations[edit]

Since becoming Police Commissioner, Kelly has served as the Honorary President of the Police Athletic League of New York City (PAL) a non-profit youth development agency that helps inner-city children and teens.

Also during his service as commissioner under Mayor Bloomberg, Kelly has been a member of the Harvard Club of New York, with membership and expenses charged covered by the privately funded New York City Police Foundation. The gift was not reported in Kelly's financial disclosures, but indications upon public revelation in 2010 were that the disclosures would be amended.[47]

A 2010 report on gifts "reported six shared plane flights to Florida in 2008 and five more in 2009, provided by Mayor ... Bloomberg at an undetermined cost".[47]

Clashes with civil liberties group over transparency[edit]

On October 16, 2011, the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan seeking to force the New York Police Department to release the daily schedules of Commissioner Kelly, whom it characterized as “the most important appointed official" in city government. According to the suit the details of whom Kelly meets with remain largely shrouded in secrecy, in marked contrast to those of other high-placed officials, including the President of the United States, who are required to publicly disclose portions of their schedules. New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo last month began posting a detailed version of his daily schedules online. “There is no good reason for Commissioner Kelly to withhold this information from the public,” Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the civil liberties group, said in a statement. “If it’s safe for the leader of the country to disclose his schedule, then it’s safe for the N.Y.P.D. commissioner to do the same.”[48] In Mr. Kelly's defense, Mitchell L. Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University, argued that a police commissioner should get “broad latitude” in a post-terrorist era. According Professor Moss, “The police commissioner of New York City occupies a special, appointed position. He’s our secretary of defense, head of the C.I.A. and, I would say, chief architect rolled into one. He may be the one person who we should treat with some respect on his privacy.”[49]

In an editorial entitled "They Like Transparency Until They Don't", the New York Times admonished:

In recent years, the New York Civil Liberties Union had to sue to get stop-and-frisk data from the police, details on the race of people shot by officers and shooting reports since 1997. Most recently, the group has filed a suit on behalf of an online columnist asking for Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly’s calendar. The department has argued that the commissioner’s whereabouts are secret for security reasons. Civil liberties lawyers note that the president’s schedule appears daily on the White House Web site, so why not Mr. Kelly’s?

Similarly, The Times was forced to go to court to get fuller access to police data. A judge ruled early last month that the New York Police Department had improperly withheld information about pistol owners and the locations of hate crimes.

Such effort and expense to get public information is simply wrong. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has vowed to promote more open government, should tell his administrators to comply with the Freedom of Information Law quickly and thoroughly.[50]

Interview with 60 Minutes about anti-terrorism measures now in place in New York City[edit]

On September 25, 2011, Mr. Kelly was interviewed on the television program 60 minutes by Scott Pelley about anti-terrorism measures taken in New York City's financial district in the 10 years following the 9/11 attacks. One of these has been the development of a $3-billion NYPD Joint Operations Center that includes representatives from the military, FBI, FEMA, and state and local first responders. During the interview, Mr. Kelly averred that the New York City police department now even possesses missiles that could take down a plane, if necessary.

Pelley: "Are you satisfied that you've dealt with threats from aircraft, even light planes, model planes, that kind of thing?"

Kelly: "It's something that's on our radar screen. In an extreme situation, we have some means to take down a plane..."

Pelley: "Do you mean to say the NYPD has the means to take down an aircraft?"

Kelly: "Yes. I'd prefer not to get into the details, but obviously this would be in a very extreme situation..."

It is nearly impossible now to walk a block in lower Manhattan without being on television. There are 2,000 cameras, and soon there will be 3,000 -- all of which feed into this control center housed in a secret location.,[52]

Technology built specifically for the NYPD includes radiological and nuclear detectors on boats, radiation detectors on helicopters and trucks, and detectors on cops' gun belts so sensitive that people who've had medical procedures may trigger them. And Lower Manhattan now includes thousands of surveillance cameras that can identify shapes and sizes of unidentified "suspicious" packages and can track people descriptions, like, "someone wearing a red shirt," within seconds.[53]

Potential involvement in Schoolcraft case[edit]

Kelly may have been aware of the alleged NYPD conspiracy against whistleblower Adrian Schoolcraft. According to the Village Voice: "If proven true, [NYPD spokesperson Paul] Browne's presence at Schoolcraft's home on Oct. 31, 2009 suggests that Commissioner Kelly was aware of the decision by Deputy Chief Michael Marino to order Schoolcraft handcuffed and dragged from his own apartment just three weeks after he reported police misconduct to the unit which audits NYPD crime statistics."[54]

Awards and honors[edit]

Upon graduation from the New York City Police Academy, Kelly won the "Bloomingdale Trophy" for the highest general average in shooting and in academic and physical prowess.[55]

^"The AP investigation revealed that the NYPD built databases of everyday life in Muslim neighborhoods, cataloguing where people bought their groceries, ate dinner and prayed. Plainclothes officers known as "rakers" were dispatched into ethnic communities, where they eavesdropped on conversations and wrote daily reports on what they heard, often without any allegation of criminal wrongdoing,"— "Law on NYPD's side in Muslim intel program?" CBS News, November 8, 2011.

^ abRivera, Ray and William K. Rashbaum, "Police Leader Had Help With Harvard Club Dues", October 25, 2010 (October 26, 2010 p. A20 NY ed.). The Times credited nypdconfidential.com with first report of the Club affiliation arrangement. Retrieved 2010-10-26.

^Romano, Kristin. "Ray Kelly New York's Top Cop", Irish America magazine, March 14, 2012. Accessed March 21, 2012. "A former-marine, a beat cop and the only person ever to serve two, non-consecutive terms as New York City Police Commissioner, Raymond P. Kelly has dedicated his life to serving his country and his city."